BoomerTowne.com: Case Closed

Eighteen months after the owner of defunct rewards program BoomerTowne sued the creator of their website, ad agency Laughlin/Constable, Inc., the case is now officially closed.

Concierge Web, LLC of Brookfield, Wisconsin, filed suit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on September 23rd of 2008 demanding that Laughlin/Constable, who “designed, built, branded and marketed” BoomerTowne.com, return the $5,826,901.62 that Concierge paid them over two years’ time for the BoomerTowne.com website, which they claimed was “basically worthless because of Laughlin’s various breaches, incompetence and misrepresentations.”
Concierge also asked for punitive damages, legal fees, and court costs.
Laughlin apparently has some kind of corporate insurance against claims like this, and their insurance company, National Casualty, was brought in as a party to the suit in December 2008. Laughlin counter-sued Concierge Web (it’s not clear from the court filings on what grounds or requesting what damages though I’d imagine they wanted their legal fees comped).
Most of 2009 was spent on various legal filings and pre-trial conferences, but by November it looks like the parties agreed to mediation. Finally, last Friday (April 16, 2010), the case was dismissed.
Whatever agreement was reached between the parties to the suit, it’s little consolation to the many users of BT who were never paid the balances owed them for their participation on the site. Clearly, both Concierge (helmed by founder Hershel Q. Peddicord) and Laughlin were both aware for some time that the site was in dire financial trouble, but they continued to lead the members to believe that they would be paid as promised for their site activities. At what point does wishful thinking become intentional empty promises?
As for the BoomerTowne.com domain, it remains offline, now privately registered through September of this year. Concierge Web LLC is listed with the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions as not having been dissolved but being delinquent in the filing of their annual reports.
To see a rundown of all of my previous posts about Boomertowne’s rise and eventual demise, click here.